Here is my review of these preset libraries for what it's worth:
To set the playing field I am coming from - I am no concert pianist, in fact I'm what I would call an intermediate level player of mostly modern music and jazz. Apart from my playing limitations I am a professional singer and somewhat of a live sound engineer who does a little bit of studio work too so I like to think I know what sounds good and how useable those particular sounds are likely to be for me. I like presets, I don't have the time and the necessary skills to do too much tweaking or creating new presets. I much prefer to have some great sounding preset libraries that I can tweak just a little.
I have tested to the best of my ability both the free library and the Concert Grand Library 3 which is based on the Steinway D instrument in Pianoteq.
Now I shall get to the pros and the cons, to avoid anyone getting put off by the cons I will leave those until last and will begin by complementing the author on the quality of the presets in these libraries and to say that I believe anyone would be impressed by them and likely want to own them as a valuable addition to their Pianoteq library.
PROS:
The sounds are mostly 'good sounding to my ears'. ('stunning' removed to avoid upsetting readers)
There are a lot of presets in each library
There are very few unuseable sounds (for me) and the vast majority are really great, you are spoilt for choice.
During my short review I cannot imagine a situation that hasn't been accounted for within the library (unless you want weird).
Dick, the author, is very helpful with a friendly and approachable manner. He is fast to respond to questions and accordingly I would suspect that support for his work is going to be top rate.
The libraries are easy to download, simple to register and install with plenty of information available about them online.
The app doesn't drain a lot of resources and latency is no different to Pianoteq.
CONS:
Please understand that this is a new project for the Author and that a lot of what I list below may change accoding to demand, feedback is essential to progress.
It's not currently available for the PC platform but apparently that will soon be adressed.
There is no location option during installation, has to go on your system drive.
No VST or AU plug-in facility. This is a big downer for me as it will not integrate directly with my DAW.
No ability to record, third party software is required for this.
The above makes it useful for Live play only.
There is very limited facility to edit the presets or save them, Volume, Reverb and Dynamics are tweakable (one control for each), EQ is on or off only. Changes remain until reset to the original settings but cannot be saved as a new preset.
There is no facility to organise the presets, no favorites for example.
The Preset Browser is limited by the above and navigating through the presets is a two click process which is very tiresome when trying them all out sequentially. There are <> buttons next to the current preset window but they don't appear to work in any logical way on my copy randomly moving from one preset to another in no particular order. This may be a bug or maybe I don't understand how it should work.
There are no keyboard shortcuts for navigation and use of the cursor keys would be helpful, everything has to be done with the mouse.
The preset volumes are all set too high, some to distortion level. This makes it a lot louder than Pianoteq and is a lengthy task to adjust each preset individually, the app would benefit from a master level control and I believe the same applies to Pianoteq as it's difficult to balance when using alongside other sound sources.
Each library installs (on the Mac) as a seperate App so if you have more than one library you have to run several instances of GrandArtist to change instruments making preset selection even more long winded.
There is no integration with Pianoteq, again you have to have both open if you want to use presets from either and then you have to reduce the volume in one to use the other on it's own, not a good way to work. It would be nice to see all available preset libraries in one place.
Bearing in mind the above limitations the libraries are expensive (for me).
Having considered all of the above and knowing that some changes are likely as the project matures, I am very tempted to buy several of the libraries based on the quality of sounds alone especially if they are all as good and comprehensive as the one I have reviewed. If these libraries were presented as FXP for use in Pinaoteq I wouldn't hesitate in spite of the high price but they are too limiting for such a high cost (IMO). This is due I know to copyright protection and I sincerely hope there is some way of getting round this to make these fabulous libraries available inside Pianoteq, maybe some sort of deal for purchasing multiple libraries could be an option but that won't improve the lack of versatility in use.
Last edited by Stilli (26-04-2018 19:29)
KawaiMP11SE KorgPA4X CubasePro10.5 GigPerformer Pteq7Pro IvoryStway B Komplete Omnishphere